Did you know that there are states with free land?
The federal Homestead Act of 1862 handed out 160 acre parcels to anyone willing to farm them. That law is long gone. Congress repealed it in 1976, homesteading hung on in Alaska until 1986, and the last homestead patent was issued in 1988.
What replaced it is smaller and more local. Rural towns and counties losing population give away building lots to anyone who will move in and put up a house, because a new family on the tax roll is worth more to them than an empty lot.
Those programs are real, and five towns have a current free lot program published on their own site right now. Three of them add money on top of the land. We called through all 17 towns commonly listed as offering free land, checked each one against its own official page, and found that five have ended or changed and six more have nothing current published at all.
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Where You Can Actually Get Free Land Right Now
Five towns publish a current free residential lot program today, and we confirmed every one of them against the town’s own published program before putting it on this list. Three of them add money on top of the land.
Start here. The detail on each one follows, and further down we cover the programs that ended so you stop chasing them. If land is not the angle you are after, we also cover the simpler ways to get free money and a few ways people live rent free without moving at all.
| Town | What you get | What it really costs | Call |
|---|---|---|---|
| ElwoodNebraska | Free 110 x 115 lot, plus 10% of build cost back, up to $25,000 | $500 refundable deposit, $50 permit | (308) 785-2480 |
| ManillaIowa | Free lot, no utility hookup fees, 5 year full tax abatement | Build to the addition covenants | (712) 654-2632 |
| New RichlandMinnesota | Free 86 x 133 lot, 75 miles from the Twin Cities | About $14,000 in assessments over 15 years if you are under the income limits | (507) 465-3514 |
| CurtisNebraska | Free lot on a paved street with utilities, plus up to $1,750 for families who move in with school age kids | Build to the city’s specifications by its deadline | (308) 367-4122 |
| OsborneKansas | Free lot in the Sunset Addition | $500 refundable deposit, 1,400 sq ft minimum | (785) 346-2670 |
One thing to be honest about before you go further. The lot is free. The house is not. Every program here requires you to build, and construction, utility hookups, permits, and a well or sewer connection are where the real money goes. Free land saves you the lot price, which in these towns was never the expensive part anyway. What it really buys you is a town that wants you there and will often stack other incentives on top. Price the build honestly first, because the costs that blindside first time buyers are exactly the ones that make a free lot stop feeling free.
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Elwood, Nebraska (the best deal on this list)
Get a free lot and up to $25,000 back. Village Office (308) 785-2480, 304 Calvert Ave, weekdays 8am to 4pm. Program page: elwoodnebraska.com.
Elwood gives you a 110 by 115 foot lot in the Wheatfield Addition for nothing. You put down a refundable $500 deposit and a $50 building permit fee, and the $500 comes back when the home is finished. Construction has to start within a year and you have to be living in it within two. The lots are open to U.S. citizens and legal residents, and the village has to approve your floor plan before you pay the deposit.
Here is the part that makes Elwood different from every other town on this list. When the home is done, the village pays you 10% of your construction cost back, up to $25,000. On a $250,000 build that is a $25,000 check once the house is finished. No other free land program we found does this.
The requirements are a stick built home with an attached two car garage, subject to the addition covenants. Eight homes have been finished under the program and a ninth is going up. The village does not publish how many lots are left, so ask when you call. Elwood is a village in Gosper County in south central Nebraska, near Johnson Lake.
Manilla, Iowa (best for first time buyers)
Free lot, five years of no property tax, and down payment help. City of Manilla (712) 654-2632, Bank Iowa (712) 654-2962, MED Corp at 443 Main Street. Program page: manillaia.com.
The Manilla Economic Development Corporation, the city, and Manilla Municipal Utilities are offering 15 single family lots in the Sunrise Addition Phase II at no cost to anyone who builds a single family home to the covenants. Streets are paved, utilities are on site, and there are no hookup fees, which quietly removes one of the biggest hidden costs of a free lot elsewhere.
On top of the free lot you get a five year 100% property tax abatement. And if this is your first home, there is separate down payment assistance of up to $34,999 for buyers who qualify for conventional financing and meet the income requirements, which stacks with the other ways to pull a down payment together.
Stack those three and a first time buyer in Manilla is looking at no lot cost, no hookup fees, no property tax for five years, and help with the down payment. Manilla is a town of about 750 in Crawford County in western Iowa. Twelve homes have been completed or are being finished in the first phase of the addition.
New Richland, Minnesota (closest to a city)
Free lot 75 miles from the Twin Cities. City of New Richland (507) 465-3514, 203 Broadway Ave N. Program page: the Homestake Subdivision page.
New Richland gives you an 86 by 133 foot lot on the northwest side of town in the Homestake Subdivision. The land itself is free, and the city is upfront about what it is not. You pay development assessments for streets, utilities, and infrastructure, and those run about $14,000, reduced from roughly $25,000 through Tax Increment Financing. You pay them over 15 years in semi annual installments with your property taxes.
To get the reduced assessment rate your household income has to be under $66,950 for a family of two or fewer, or under $76,993 for a family of three or more. Earn more than that and you can still get a lot, but not the reduced assessment. You need a lender pre approval letter before you pick a lot, approval takes up to four weeks, and you have one year from the deed date to build. If the assessments are the sticking point, there are routes into a home with little or nothing down that work alongside a free lot.
Fourteen thousand dollars is not free, but it is spread over 15 years and it buys you a lot in a town of about 1,200 with a golf course, a bike trail, and a lake beach, 75 miles from the southern edge of the Twin Cities. If rural Kansas is too far off the map for you, this is the one to look at.
Curtis, Nebraska
Free residential and commercial lots. Andrew Lee, City Administrator, (308) 367-4122, curtis@curtis-ne.com. Program page: curtis-ne.gov. Also listed as current by the State of Nebraska.
Curtis has free sites for both residential lots and commercial or industrial use. The city says every residential lot sits on a paved concrete street with all utilities, so you are not paying to bring power and water across a field. That is a real saving, and it is the difference between a free lot you can build on right away and one you have to develop first.
The deal is a single family home built to the city’s specifications inside a set time period. The city does not publish the specifications or the deadline on its page, so get both in writing before you commit. Sort out your financing before you call too, because the banks that actually do land and construction lending are a much shorter list than the ones that do mortgages. Families who move in from another school district and enroll their kids at Medicine Valley Public Schools can also get cash: $750 for one child, $1,250 for two, and $1,750 for three or more.
Curtis is a town of about 840 in Frontier County and is home to the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture. The city’s page points to a medicinevalleyedc.com address that no longer goes to the local development group, so call the city administrator instead.
Osborne, Kansas
Free residential lots plus commercial incentives. Economic Development (785) 346-2670, 130 N 1st Street. Program page: discoverosborne.com.
Osborne offers free residential property in the Sunset Addition on the western edge of town, north of Main Street, and runs incentives on the commercial side too. It is one of the few places here where a homeowner and a business owner both have something to apply for.
You file an application with the city, then meet with the city to sign an agreement. The application spells out the terms. You pay a $500 deposit that comes back once you have met the agreement. You sign with a contractor within six months of approval, finish construction within 12 months, and move in within 24. The house has to be at least 1,400 square feet on the ground level, on a crawl space or basement foundation, and mobile homes are out.
Two lines in the fine print matter. Special assessments may apply depending on the lot, and the city notes the sewer line is not deep enough for a basement drain. The posted form is a few years old, so confirm the deposit and deadlines when you call.
Flagler, Colorado (businesses only)
Business land from about 424 acres. Town Hall (719) 765-4571, but read this first. Program page: flagler.colorado.gov.
Flagler sits about two hours east of Denver with a population under 600. The town lists 424.4 acres as available and gives land to businesses its Town Board decides will benefit the town. The board weighs how many people you will employ, what you plan to build, and how much water and infrastructure the business needs. This is the best documented program in this entire article. The town publishes the steps, the program details, the application, the fee ordinance, and a map of the parcels.
Three things to know. This is a business incentive, not a way to get a house lot. There is no infrastructure on the land, and the town expects each business to pay for its own. And the town specifically asks applicants not to call about it, so read the published steps and mail in the application with the deposit, which the fee ordinance sets at $10 for each acre you ask for.
The old flaglercolorado.com free land page is dead. The town moved to a .gov address, and most articles still linking to the old URL send you to a 404.
Six More Towns Worth a Phone Call
These towns have run free lot programs and are still widely listed as active everywhere else online. We could not find a current published page confirming lots are available, so treat them as a phone call rather than a plan. Several may well still have lots. We just will not tell you they do when we cannot see it.
Mankato, Kansas
Call (785) 378-3141. The program page is still up and lists 26 lots in the Johnson Addition, close to the high school, the hospital, and half a mile from the shopping center, with utilities at or near the lots. Terms are a 1,200 square foot minimum excluding basement, garage, and porches, a contractor signed to start building within six months, the home finished within two years, lender approval, and an interview with the city council.
The catch is that the page carries no date and the resolution it cites is from 2006. Twenty six lots may not be sitting there waiting. Call before you plan around it.
Wilson, Kansas
Call (785) 658-2272. That is the City of Wilson’s office. Other sites still list free lots here in a development called Prairie Estates. The city’s own website has no free land page and nothing about lots in its site map, so we cannot tell you what the terms are today. When you call, ask whether special assessments for streets and water lines come with the lot, because assessments are where a free lot can still cost you, as New Richland shows.
Wilson is a town of about 830 in central Kansas, near Wilson Lake, a reservoir with about 9,000 acres of water run by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Marquette, Kansas
Call (785) 546-2205 or email marquette@lrmutual.com, weekdays 9am to noon and 1pm to 4pm. Marquette is one of the best known free land towns in Kansas, and other sites still list lots in its Westridge Addition with a minimum home size and a deadline to build.
The city site is still online but no longer publishes a free land page, so we cannot confirm it is taking applications. Worth the call if central Kansas appeals to you.
Marne, Iowa
Call (712) 249-5086 or email marneiowa@gmail.com. Marne is a town of about 110 people an hour outside Omaha in southwestern Iowa, and it has been listed for years as giving away lots to anyone who would build.
The city website is live but does not show a free lot page or mention the program, so ask what the requirements are now.
Plainville, Kansas
Call (785) 434-2841. That is the Plainville city office. Plainville is in Rooks County with a population of about 1,650 and has offered lots about 155 feet wide by 93 feet deep in its North Addition. The structure mirrors Osborne. You put down a $500 deposit and the city returns it at closing once you have met the agreement. The published terms were a new home on a full foundation, no single wide mobile homes, a builder under contract within six months, and construction finished within 18 months.
Those terms come from the county’s free home sites page, which has since been taken down, and the county’s current real estate and property pages do not list free lots. Ask the city office whether any are left.
Loup City, Nebraska
Call (308) 745-5040. That is Sherman County Economic Development, or email info@scedinc.org. Loup City and the county development office finished the John Subdivision, a twelve home subdivision in the north part of town, in October 2010 and offered its lots free to anyone who would build within a set time. It sits a few blocks from the city schools.
That was a long time ago. Neither the city’s current site nor the development office’s housing page mentions free lots today, and the old loupcity.com address is no longer the city’s website. Ask whether any lots are left before you plan around it.
Programs That Ended or Changed
These five still show up on nearly every free land list online. They should not. Skip them.
Buffalo, New York: from $1,000 a lot
For years Buffalo’s Urban Homestead Program let residents acquire city owned property inside designated Urban Renewal Areas below fair market value, and many free land articles still describe it as a dollar lot. The old program page now returns a 404.
Buffalo’s current Homestead Plan, dated December 2025, sells city owned vacant residential lots at a flat price of $1,000 to $10,000 a parcel. Homeowners, builders, and nonprofits apply through the Division of Real Estate at (716) 851-5280. Eligible uses are new construction, side yard acquisition, renovation of city owned houses, and stewardship uses such as community gardens. Build a new home on a lot and you have 24 months to finish it and have to live in it for five years. Still cheap, and still worth a look if you want to be in a real city. Just not free.
Beatrice, Nebraska: off the state list
Beatrice launched its own Homestead Act of 2010, modeled on the 1862 law, offering free city lots to people who would build a house and live in it. That was more than fifteen years ago. Nebraska’s own state listing of free land communities names only Curtis and Elwood today, and Beatrice is not on it.
It is still a pleasant town of around 12,000 about 40 miles south of Lincoln. Just do not go expecting a free lot.
Lincoln, Kansas: program page gone
Lincoln ran a Free Home Site Program, and the city’s website carried a page for it as recently as 2024. That page now returns a 404, and the current city site shows no free lot program at all. Aggregator sites still list Lincoln as active. We could find nothing to support that.
Muskegon, Michigan: businesses only, and dated
Muskegon appears on free land lists because of a 2010 offer of free industrial park land to companies that would bring jobs. The source everyone cites is news coverage from 2010, not a live program page, and the city’s economic development page does not list any free land today. If you run a business looking at west Michigan, the city’s economic development office at (231) 724-6702 can tell you what is on offer now, which includes tax incentives and Opportunity Zones. If you want a free house lot, this is not it.
Claremont, Minnesota: now a housing program
Claremont is still on most free land lists. The Lot Program page on the city’s site now describes the Claremont Workforce Housing Program, run with Arden Home Services, which aims to help nine working families buy a home. Families under the income limit, which is $144,440 for a family of three or more, apply, complete eight hours of homeowner education, and then work with a counselor on a USDA mortgage.
The page says nothing about a free lot. To find out what a home there costs, call Arden Home Services at (507) 363-6132 or City Hall at (507) 528-2137.
States With No Confirmed Free Land Program
Every program on this page is run by a town, not a state, and the ones we could confirm are in Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and Colorado. We have no confirmed free land program to list in any of the states below or in Washington, DC. That is not proof none exists, since small towns open these with little notice. If you have a place in mind, call its city hall or county economic development office and ask.
- Alabama
- Alaska
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- California
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Florida
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Montana
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Washington State
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
- District of Columbia (DC)
FAQs
The free land offers we could confirm come from small towns, not from state governments. Each one gives you a building lot in exchange for putting up a home there.
The towns with a current, published free lot program are in Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, and Minnesota, and Flagler, Colorado offers land to businesses. Restrictions always apply, such as building a home within a set time, and some towns also ask for a refundable deposit or set a minimum home size.
Generally, small towns or counties in these states will have the best availability of free land. This is because they are trying to increase their population and jumpstart their economy. So if you’re looking for a place to start a new life, one of these states could be the perfect fit for you.
While there is such a thing as “free” land, there are also definitely states where you can find cheap land. This is often land that is less developed or in a remote location.
The USDA’s 2026 land values survey puts the average value of U.S. farm real estate, land and buildings together, at $4,500 an acre. The lowest state averages are New Mexico at $735 an acre, Wyoming at $1,030, Nevada at $1,230, and Montana at $1,260. The survey does not cover Alaska or Hawaii. Those are averages for farm and ranch land, so treat them as a guide to where land is cheap, not as the price of a building lot.
Again, restrictions may apply when purchasing cheap land. For example, you may have to pay taxes on the property or develop it within a certain time frame. But if you’re willing to put in some work, buying cheap land can be a great way to get a lot of space for a relatively small investment.
Not free housing as such, but there is help with the cost. The federal Housing Choice Voucher program, also known as Section 8, helps low-income families, older adults, veterans, and people with disabilities afford a rental in the private market. About 2,000 local public housing agencies run it with funding from HUD, so you apply through a local agency, not through your state.
Nonprofits help too. Catholic Charities USA says its agencies are among the nation’s largest providers of affordable housing, with more than 38,000 permanent units for families, seniors, veterans, and others, plus temporary and emergency housing.
Summary
Free land is real, and the short answer is Elwood, Manilla, New Richland, Curtis, and Osborne. Those five have published, current residential lot programs. Flagler makes six if you are placing a business rather than building a house. Six more are worth a phone call. Five that everyone still lists have ended or changed.
The pattern is consistent once you look at enough of them. A small town loses people, opens a subdivision, asks for a refundable deposit and a minimum square footage, and gives you a deadline to finish building. The lot costs nothing. The house costs what a house costs. The towns that understand this are the ones adding money on top, which is why Elwood and Manilla are the two worth looking at hardest.
So run the real numbers first. Construction, utility hookups, permits, assessments, and the cost of living somewhere with one grocery store. Budget the move itself too, since for almost everyone reading this a free lot means an out of state move. Then call the town at the top of the table and ask what is available this month. Program pages go stale faster than anyone updates them, including the towns’ own pages, which is exactly why most articles on this subject are years out of date.
